Conflictos éticos en las autorías de trabajos científicos / Ethical conflicts in the authorship of scientific papers

The frequency of conflicts about authorship of publications has increased along with the increase in the number of people involved in scientific work. Some of the factors that strongly influence the generation of conflicts and malpractices in authorship definition of scientific publications are the pressure of academia, economic incentives from the pharmaceutical industry in the field of biomedicine and authors’ wishes and expectations of recognition, among other factors. The article analyzes this problem, increasingly common in the field of medicine and related areas. Special attention is devoted to the prevailing laws in our country and international guidelines related to intellectual property and authorship of scientific publications, respectively. However, the ethical commitment, intellectual honesty and truthfulness of each of the authors about what is reported seems to be the decisive factor for the solution to these authorship conflicts.

Ethics in Publishing: Complexity Science and Human Factors Offer Insights to Develop a Just Culture.

While ethics in publishing has been increasingly debated, there seems to be a lack of a theoretical framework for making sense of existing rules of behavior as well as for designing, managing and enforcing such rules. This letter argues that systems-oriented disciplines, such as complexity science and human factors, offer insights into new ways of dealing with ethics in publishing. Some examples of insights are presented. Also, a call is made for empirical studies that unveil the context and details of both retracted papers and the process of writing and publishing academic papers. This is expected to shed light on the complexity of the publication system as well as to support the development of a just culture, in which all participants are accountable.